no more jobs

Unless civilization collapses, robots will eventually make us all unemployable. I’m trying to figure out the least-bad way to do it.

Today, I’ll list some things that I think will help. None of these even come close to solving the problems that universal automation causes, but they’ll help. I’ll also list some things that I don’t want to properly endorse, but I think will do more good than bad.

I’m not going to try to predict exactly when your job will disappear. People have said for a long time that robots will take everyone’s jobs now and they’ve always been wrong thus far. I know why. Instead, I’ll list some things that I think will be signs that robots are about to take everyone’s jobs, and leave you to come to your own conclusion.

Unless civilization collapses, someone will eventually make a robot that can do anything you can do, for free. I’m trying to figure out the least-bad way to do this. Today is brainstorming day – in which I’ll try to come up with the most idealistic, unrealistic, best imaginable way this could turn out. I hope that this will give me some ideas for how we could improve our lot outside of utopia. For the benefit of utopians who actually believe that this best-case scenario would work without any serious problems, I’ll also explain why it won’t work in practice.

It seems to me that this view is fairly common among people in industries that benefit from automation – computing, robotics, electronics, etc. This makes sense – those who benefit from automation are more likely to see it as a good thing.

“But wait”, say those who lost their jobs to robots, “replacing a human with a robot destroys a job. How can it create them?” They answer that it makes companies more efficient, and allows them to lower prices. Even though many people lose their jobs because of automation in – for example – car factories, everyone else gets to enjoy lower prices. They then have more money to spend, which gives employers a big incentive to hire more people. Workers in 1 sector of industry suffer, while everyone else benefits. Continue reading No More Jobs – What if Technology Creates More Jobs than it Destroys?

Unless civilization collapses, engineers will eventually figure out how to replace everyone with unpaid robots. So what’s the least bad way to do it?

In this series, I’ll cover some of the main schools of thought about universal automation. I’ll then describe the unrealistic ideal, what most people will actually do, and what the more selfless people on planet earth can do to make the domination of automation work out as well as practical.